Chip sales reached $15.58bn around the world in February, up 30.8 per cent on February 2002's total, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said late last week.

Sequentially, the figure was rather less impressive, amounting to a 0.2 per cent increase over January 2004's figure. February is rarely as strong month for chip sales, and the fact sales went up in a short month over a longer one is a good sign.

Processor sales declined 0.7 per cent between February and January - again, what traditional sales patterns forecast - but programmable logic devices and ASICs grew 4.3 per cent thanks to improving sales in the communications sector.

Sales in the US and Japan declined slightly (by 0.1 per cent and 1.8 per cent, respectively), while all other geographic regions recorded sequential increases. Europe was up 0.7 per cent, Asia-Pacific 1.3 per cent.

Year-on-year, the Americas and Europe saw 20.1 per cent and 20.8 per cent growth, respectively. But Japan and Asia-Pacific saw more impressive growth: 30.2 per cent and 42.8 per cent, respectively. ®